Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fantasy

DANIEL STEVENS knew he had special powers; the problem was they were powers nobody really wanted to have, especially Daniel Stevens. Because he had these powers, these unwanted gifts, he decided he would always wear a black hoodie so nobody would recognize him. But the issue with that was, because he wore a black hoodie everywhere he went, people began to recognize him because of it. And the worst thing about that was, Daniel Stevens didn't know anybody recognized him wherever he went, because Daniel Stevens was your basic loner.

You see, accidents of all kinds happened around Daniel Stevens wherever he went. If workmen, for instance, were hoisting a grand piano up to the twentieth floor of an apartment building, and Daniel Stevens walked by, well, you'd better run for cover. If your hands were full of groceries as you were coming out onto the sidewalk, the odds were ten to one that, if Daniel Stevens was around, whoever was carrying those groceries would very likely encounter a banana peel they didn't see, and, well, you know the rest. 

The funny thing was, even if Daniel happened to be walking through a collapsing building, he was the only one who ever managed to make it out alive, and without a single scratch on him. Mind you, it wasn't as if buildings collapsed everywhere all the time, but the likelihood of that happening went up exponentially if the hopelessly optimistic Daniel Stevens was around. 

Now the words "hopelessly optimistic" were used for a reason. Put on your Open Minded Caps people, because those two words described Daniel Reginald Stevens to a T. For example, if Daniel was applying for a job and the building started to go belly up, he would just say to himself that maybe it just wasn't meant to be. If a building burnt to the ground that Daniel was working in, he would never blurt out a sorry or indicate that he was in anyway responsible. So you have to admit that Daniel Stevens was a pretty positive guy by anyone's standards, and perhaps we could all learn a few things from this very unique fellow.

One of the things you might want to learn about Daniel Stevens was that, yes, he had a big nose, squinty eyes in need of glasses and jumbo ears that rivalled Prince Charles's, but he had nice teeth, didn't he? Sure, he was a little on the skinny side and his feet were big enough to waterski on, but nobody ever once complained that his rearend was too small for their liking, or that the hair on his head looked like the rats had been sucking on it. Nobody, that is, except Mrs. Cordelia Stevens, Daniel's beloved mother, who was known to complain about most everything.

She complained that it was difficult to eat for people with buckteeth (and from firsthand experience it should be said, for Mrs. Stevens had the "bucktoothiest" teeth anyone had ever seen). She complained that her butt was two sizes too large for the rest of her (actually it was at least five times the usual recommended butt size), and that her breasts were just too heavy to be toting around the mall - her favourite habitat - because it made her "stick out" (no disagreement there). She complained her hair was just too red and unmanageably curly, so she wore a scarf around it, which she didn't like. But the thing she hated the most was her chin, for the simple reason that she just didn't have one (as was candidly pointed out by her perfect sister, Amelia, whom she despised). Whichever way you looked at it, her chin just seemed to spill into her neck, with nothing more than the tiniest bump to indicate she even had a chin at all.

Enough about Mrs. Stevens, however.  This story is about Daniel, as much as the very idea that somebody would ever consider focusing on HIM, for Pete's sake, and not HER would have been nothing short of an outrage!  You see, another thing about Mrs. Stevens you probably didn't know, she tended to remind people of a certain billionaire President whenever a camera happened to be afoot.  She simply HAD to be the center of attention at all times, even if she did only work at the local mall cleaning toilets for a living.  Hence, unlike that certain President we all know and admire, the sticky handshake.

Getting back to Daniel (because I haven't even finished explaining all of those special gifts he possessed), there was something else he could do that you and your Uncle Bob would probably think was pretty darned incredible.  But let me be perfectly clear: it only happened when he got mad and was stewing about something.  He - oh, how do I even explain this!?  He could move even the heaviest of objects with a simple wave of his hand or the jab of an elbow.  For instance, when somebody climbing off the back of the bus in front of him let one rip and all of the girls traipsing onto the bus came down the aisle holding their noses and staring at him like HE was the culprit, that made Daniel self-conscious and very, very mad.  He stormed off the bus and walked the rest of the way to school, throwing his arm out at speeding cars that almost ran him down, and, in so doing, pushed them right up onto the sidewalk as though some invisible giant nearby had just tossed them aside.  Once, he even mimed picking up a vehicle and throwing it into the air at the exact same time a truck and its reckless driver went sailing off into the sky, landing smack dab in the middle of the river miles away.  No, you didn't want to mess with Daniel Stevens when he was wearing his grumpy boots, that's for sure!

So now that you know who Daniel Stevens is (yes, yes, Mrs. Stevens, and you too), we come to a very sad part in our story, so you might want to  grab some keenix before you read any further.  The truth is, this story doesn't take place in those typical mega-giant cities, like New York or Los Angeles.  In fact, it doesn't even unfold in the United States as anyone would expect.  Clue number one: it takes place in a city that happens to be located in North America's geolographic center.  Clue number two: it's a pretty cold place to live during the winter.  Clue number three: it's the city Winnie the Pooh was named after, seeing as the real bear was transferred from that location to the London Park Zoo where author Lewis Carol was working at the time.

Give up?

Forget the drum roll.  Winnipeg (sometimes called Winterpeg or San Win-cisco-peg, not that you'd ever wonder why) was, at this point in our story, sweltering hot.  School was just a few short weeks away from summer break and everyone was out scrambling for a job to help pay for their college tuition in the Fall.  Actually, there were a few buildings at which Daniel had gone to job interviews that had burned to the ground shortly afterwards, throwing several hundred people out of work, so the competition for jobs was getting pretty stiff.  With that and the sudden heat wave blowing through the city, you can imagine that tempers  were flaring a whole lot more than alot, especially Mrs. Stevens'.

"I thought I told you to take the garbage out three times already!" she yelled up the stairs at Daniel, who was sitting at his desk, scouring the internet for information about Luis Riel, his latest history assignment.  "And where's my cigarettes!  Did you steal my cigarettes again?"

Daniel heaved out an exasperated breath.  "Ma!  I don't smoke, remember?"

"You'd better not be smoking, young man, because if I find out otherwise, you'll be in for some pretty bad cookies and sauerkraut, do you hear me!?"

Daniel mouthed the same words he may have heard a thousand times over the years in precise synchrony
as his mother, then blew out another frustrated sigh.  "Man," he grumbled, "I'm never going to get this done in time.  I hate history!"

"What was that you said!  Did you just say that you hate your dear, sweet mother?"  Mrs. Stevens voice went up a notch in surprise and outrage.

"Ma, please!"

"Don't you backtalk me, mister!" she rumbled back.  "Now get down here this instant!  Breakfast is on the table, and where's your father?

From another part of the house roared the deep, sonorous voice of Mr. Willie Stevens, whom, if you must know, was bald with a bit of a paunch and wore glasses.  "I'm sitting on the the john!" 

Daniel gasped and peeled aside the curtains of his bedroom window to see Gloria Wilkinson standing stock still on the sidewalk, mouth open, gazing up at the house.  He groaned in defeat.  "The windows are open."

"Well, how's your hemorrhoids today, Willie!?" his mother shouted, causing Daniel to wince painfully.

"Say again?" his father bellowed.

"I SAID HOW'S YOUR HEMORRHOIDS TODAY, SWEET LUMPS!!"

Daniel was horrified.  "Please tell me this isn't happening."  He glanced out the window to the sight of Gloria pulling out her cellphone and madly texting away, likely to let the entire school know what she had just heard.  It didn't help that blonde, voluptuous Gloria was thick with all the most popular people going to Westwood Collegiate, nor that Daniel - otherwise known as the school dork - needed all the help he could get in the Friendship Department.  Even other self-respecting dorks didn't want to be around Daniel.

As he was listening to his parents "discussion", which had progressed to certain things that had apparently started to ooze gross liquids, a streetlight simply exploded, its glass showering down around Gloria, who amazingly hadn't noticed a thing, she was so busy texting.  A parked vehicle skidded across the street and bumped into her side, but she simply took a few steps forwards, eyes glued to her cellphone, and continued slowly up the street, texting evil messages about Daniel and his family to her friends.

Daniel hung his head drearily over his bowl of cereal at the table as Mr. Stevens trudged into the kitchen with a cushion and plunked it down on a chair before sitting down and leaning sideways with a painful groan.

"Dear, dear!" sighed Cordelia, standing at the sink washing dishes.  "Acid behind again, Sweet Lumps?"

Daniel glanced up.  A head had just popped up over the backyard fence, listening.  It was Mrs. Tattle in the adjoining yard, the worst gossip ever known to walk the face of the Earth.

"The worst!" answered Mr. Stevens over the sound of his wife suddenly horking up a large goblet of phlegm and spitting it into the garbage.

"Oh!  There's my cigarettes!" she exclaimed, leaning down and pulling a package of du'Maurier out of the orbital.  "I must've thrown them out by mistake."

Daniel winced.  A long gluey string of Mrs. Stevens' phlegm dangled from the corner of the package.  This, of course, plopped onto the floor unnoticed by anyone but Daniel and Skippy, who happily panted up and licked the floor clean.

Daniel shuddered and quickly looked away.  His cereal, Lumps Ahoy, was getting soggy, and he suddenly didn't feel very hungry anymore.  "I gotta go," he said, getting up.

"Not without finishing your cereal, you're not," scowled Cordelia.  "You look like you've been wasting away to a frazzle recently.  I'm sure you have jump around in the shower just to get wet.  You DID shower today, didn't you?"

"Of course I did!" Daniel lied indignantly.  "Ma, I have to get to school; I'll be late."

"Lunch!" she trilled warningly, grabbing a paper bag out of the fridge and handing it to him.  It seemed a little bulkier than usual.  "Has anyone seen my ashtray?" she whined as Daniel peeled open his lunchbag and looked inside.  Reaching in, he pulled out a round, red, plastic ashtray resting on top of his sandwiches and handed it quietly to his mother.  "Oh, my goodness!  How'd it end up in there?"

Daniel shrugged and headed out the door, grabbing his backpack and shades from the front hall table enroute and throwing a hasty goodbye behind him as he stepped out onto the porch.


- more to come.
- just started this, my first whack at writing.
- let me know if you like it.